Tartarin of Tarascon by Alphonse Daudet

Underwhelming adventures of a comical hero

Alphonse Daudet (1840–1897) is a beloved writer in his native France but not so familiar to American readers. He is considered a naturalist writer, but his works tend to be lighter and more humorous than contemporaries like Emile Zola or Joris-Karl Huysmans. Daudet was born in the South of France, and his novels and stories are often set in that region of the country. One such novel is Tartarin of Tarascon, published in 1872. This book must have achieved some degree of success in France because it spawned two sequels: Tartarin on the Alps and Port Tarascon.

Tarascon is a department in the French region of Provence, near the Mediterranean Coast. Daudet describes it as a quaint, bucolic locale where hunting is the primary pastime. One resident of this district is Tartarin, a short, stocky, he-man who reads adventure novels and dreams of exploring exotic lands. He has never left Tarascon, however, and has never done anything to distinguish himself as particularly intrepid. Nevertheless, as a big fish in a small pond, the other hunters of Tarascon regard him as somewhat of a local hero. One day the circus comes to town, bringing with it a caged lion. When Tartarin steps up to the cage to regard the beast, he is heard to mutter something along the lines of, “I’d like to take a crack at one of those.” The folks of Tarascon inflate this comment into a rumor that Tartarin is planning a trip to Africa to hunt lions. After a while, the rumor becomes so insistent that Tartarin feels the only way he can save face is to make the rumor a reality.

The problem is, Tartarin is somewhat of a coward. Daudet describes him as having two personalities—part Don Quixote, the romantic hero, and part Sancho Panza, the cautious everyman. He is ill-equipped with the courage required to make an international voyage, much less hunt the king of the jungle. Feeling obligated, however, to do so, he embarks on a boat to Algeria.

This all sounds like the set-up for a funny slapstick comedy about a clumsy sad sack who stumbles his way by dumb luck through dangerous situations. The humor here, however, has not aged well, and the gags don’t inspire much laughter anymore. The jokes are so simplistic that I wondered if this were perhaps written for children. Daudet spends too much time convincing us of Tartarin’s insignificance and ineptitude. By the time he gets to anything resembling an adventure, more than half the book has already gone by. Things don’t really pick up a whole lot once Tartarin arrives in Africa, either. The hardest part about shooting a lion is finding one. Eventually, the novel is wrapped up with an ending that just feels silly and pointless.

If the plot is so sluggish, what’s the main attraction here? The character of Tartarin does inspire some sympathy. He’s an underdog the reader can root for. French readers likely would have recognized him as a certain stereotypical type of Southerner. English-language readers probably won’t get that connotation but will still recognize Tartarin as a familiar type of lovable loser who bites off more than he can chew. Such satire is not enough to bring any laughter or excitement to the proceedings, however. Like drifting down a lazy river, this book just kind of coasts along, and the ride ultimately feels inconsequential.